In a message dated 5/15/2001 12:59:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
johnmarlow@gmx.net writes:
<< Marlow's Axiom of the Long Term: All talk of a long-term contains an
unwarranted assumption and is therefore unduly optimistic. >>
Define long-term, in a practical sense. Is 500 years too soon for Star Trek
level technology, 5000 years, 50,000 years, or 5 million? There are
certainly maturation's of technologies, which either produce plateaus of
capability, as well as slow and fast evolutions of capability. Revolutions
tend to be fewer and farther between. We need some guides, some examples, to
help us properly measure what is achievable and what it will take to gain
that achievement. In an Aristotelian sense we need something that is neither
the fantastically, optimistic "hand-waving" of magazine peddling journalists,
nor the vituperative, pessimism of the leftists and anti-tech sociopaths.
Mitch
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